Time Team's PICTURE PERFECT POTTERY 🏺

Over there's Loo Island, off the dramatic coast of Cornwall. And to say it's got a romantic history is an understatement. You can't move for stories of shipwrecks and pirates and monks and ghosts and treasure maps. Pilgrims frequently lost their lives in these waters on the trip to a chapel on the island, which has now vanished. Here in Loo, we're investigating a story of two chapels. In the medieval period, they belonged to Glastonbury Abbey, the important Somerset Monastery, famous for cultivating the legends of King Arthur and Joseph of Arimathea. And according to local legend, it was Joseph of Arimathea who brought Jesus Christ to Loo Island and left him to play in the safety of these beaches while he went off to do business with Cornish tin merchants. If people really did believe that Jesus played here when he was a lad, that would have got people flocking here, wouldn't it? Oh, yeah, that would have driven a whole pilgrimage industry of people coming out here to see, you know, and the support structure for it. It's just that sort of thing that people travel around to visit. So you're really champing the bit now, aren't you? Well, of course I am. I mean, the point is that time and tide are the two things that wait for no man. We have got to get off of this island by early afternoon. And we've only got half our diggers because the others are, I don't know if you can see, just around the headland there, up on that hillside. What are they doing there, Mick? There's another chapel over there, halfway up the hill, and they're said to be the same size. One's said to be a copy of the other one. But the mainland chapel has been excavated already, hasn't it, Phil? Well, that's right. I mean, partially dug at least. I mean, in the 1930s, some local Cornish archaeologists went in there, and they were slightly eccentric ideas. They were desperate that it should be pre-Norman, and they kind of labelled it Celtic. What do we mean by Celtic, Mick? It's a shorthand term in the West Country for something that's after the Romans but before the Normans. But, of course, we don't have Anglo-Saxons in this area, so it's a shorthand term for that Dark Age period. And there are maps dating back to the 16th century showing a chapel right on top of the hill. Right, that should be our excavated area in between these strings. If you want to start stripping the turf off of that, that would be fine. Thank you, Nick. So, with time in short supply, Phil's confident enough to get going without geophys results. And Stuart's nose for earthworks has sniffed out what he thinks is a nave for the pilgrims and a chancel for the altar. You see, Phil's getting a bit of a wall coming out through there, which rather suggests that that's probably the first block. Perhaps that added on to it. Right. So, what do you think the timeline might be? The very early what they call Celtic chapel would be wood, and we'd just find post holes. Then what? If we're lucky, we find post holes, and then we get a stone building on top of that which is pretty small and pretty featureless. And then somebody comes along and revamps that with some nice architectural pieces, perhaps doorways, chancel arch, windows, in the 12th century. That would be my guess as to what we'd see on the site. The structures themselves could be the best clue we have when it comes to dating, because chapels don't have the domestic rubbish that we usually rely on to date buildings. Hey, Phil, that trench is coming along, isn't it? Yeah, I mean, it looks like we've got the beginnings of a wall, Tony. I mean, we always knew that there were those big stones just immediately underneath the turf, but now we've got it stripped off. You can see there's a nice edge there, but we really need to be able to get down to confirm that that is a wall. We certainly can't date it, but we can begin to suggest that it is a chapel. Jackie was showing me some bone earlier on. What have you got, Jackie? The bits that are really of interest are these pieces here. Now, these are bits of human femur, and it's quite a large individual. You can see these ridges running down here. This is where the big thigh muscles attach, and they really are quite rugged. So this is quite a large individual with quite chunky thighs. So we've got a mystery of a big-thighed person somewhere on this island at some time. And he might not be the only burial here, because human bones are said to have been revealed as the cliff faces have eroded. Glastonbury acquired this land sometime in the 12th century, and legal documents suggest that there was already a chapel on the island at this time. At the chapel on the top of the island, it looks like we've found a potential north wall. And Ian's put in a new trench, looking for the west end. On the other side of the water, we've found steps coming down the hillside into the chapel on the mainland, chunky stone walls, and a floor surface carved out of the rock face. It seems to be deliberately terraced into the hillside at exactly the same height as the island chapel. Isn't it weird looking back at our chapel from this chapel? It is, and yet this is strangely familiar. I mean, when you look at the size of this chapel, and you think about the earthworks over there, they are very, very similar. Can you see this, what looks like a wall running here? There's almost like face stones coming through. Well, they're actually floating on top of this dirt. We need to get to grips with this wall to find out whether there was a nave here before Glastonbury added a chancel. And Bridge and Oliver have now found some postholes that might prove Croft Andrew's theory that this nave was Celtic. It would have been a hell of a job cutting through that rock, wouldn't it? Oh, absolutely, and I haven't excavated them yet, but having stuck my trowel down there, at least the steep. So do we think we've got our earlier chapel, our early timber chapel? If you're very, very lucky. On the other hand, of course, they could be late. They could be post-dissolution for all we know. But we've also got this other new feature that's just come up, which may support an earlier structure. Can you see down here, we've got this wee gully, and it's been actually cut into the stone. It's at a right angle, and that could well be a timber slot for an earlier building. And that's in line with those postholes as well, isn't it? Absolutely. Pilgrims who made it safely to the island chapel believed that St Michael would reward their bravery with time off purgatory. And we're just beginning to uncover the nave where they would have stood. Phil, I think I might have a piece of in situ flooring here. Good Lord. And that is exactly the same sort of surface that we had on the mainland chapel yesterday, wasn't it? That was a mortared surface just like this, and it's patches directly on the natural bedrock, and this wall too. Look at this wall here. So what angle are we on there? Where's north? Hang on. There we go. I'll tell you exactly what angle we are. Hang on, east-west. It doesn't get much better than that, does it? It doesn't get much better than that. This wall's convincing because chapels generally face the east, often orientated to the sunrise of their saints' day. Now we can really get our teeth into working out what it might have looked like. 1590s, all these lovely ships. Yes, that's amazing. Because this is showing the disposition of the English and Spanish fleets at the Armada. It's a story map to some extent, but you can see along here we've got what's called St Michael's Island at that stage, but it still shows a chapel. It depicts it with a tower, but I think you have to take that with a pinch of salt. We've got the wall now. It is bang on east-west. Right. Now the interesting thing now is what is happening in here, because we've got all this. These stones are mortared in, so this is actually masonry. Right. Now what I don't know, and I'm trying to resolve, is whether or not that wall comes along and turns. In other words, we're actually in the northeast corner of the chapel, or whether it's actually a big swell in to take a buttress or a big column that might support a chancel arch. Like the big stones we've got over here, in fact. Exactly. Now you see down there, Matt had another wall. Yeah. Now I did wonder at one stage whether or not that might be the south wall of the chapel, but now we've actually cleaned it up and looked at it, you can actually see that it's on a slightly different alignment. It's south-west to north-east. Right. So I'm rather hopeful, if it worked out all right for me, we'd have a wall coming here, be the northeast corner of the chapel. Yeah. This is the chapel. That would be a separate building outside it. If Phil's right, the island chapel could be much smaller than the mainland chapel, so the theory that they were mirror images is looking a bit shaky. Beginning of day three here at Loo in Cornwall. We've got a chapel on the island over there, we've got another one at the top of the hill, and this morning we're going to open the stone-lined burial we found yesterday. One day left, and frustratingly, the tides won't let us out to the island for a couple of hours yet. Jack is already hard at work on the possible grave in the mainland chapel, because whoever lies inside it should be an important figure in our story. It's all a little bit strange. Strange in what way? It's very narrow, but I think actually... It looks narrow because of the pressure of material pushing down on here. You can see this stone here is angled. I suspect it was originally further over there. But I think we might find that there's something underneath these. I'm probably going to have to take those out. Where do you think the end might be then, Jackie? Well, you can see how the soil changes completely there, so I think it actually could be right over here. Given its position within the church, it could be a storage area for reliquaries. What are reliquaries? It's usually some kind of box or other kind of container in which you would store things like the bones of saints in your church. Further down the hill, Raksha has found the missing wall of the monks' house that we were looking for yesterday, and it's a pretty substantial building. We've got lovely coursing down this side, and we've got another one here. You can actually see this line going across here, so that's the inside of the building. The standing remains show a two-storey building. Croft Andrew found two small bedrooms for our monks, and we found the back wall of a refectory, which would have been used by pilgrims waiting to get to the island on feast days when they really did make a day of it. I don't think we've got anything in there. This is an extraordinary find. Relics beneath the altar would have been displayed on feast days, drawing pilgrims to this chapel to make offerings. Frustratingly, the bones have long since been removed, so we can't date it. Jackie, I've got bone here. But in a different part of the chapel, Bridge thinks she's found another burial. And it's human. Part of the human foot bone. You've got to look to have more down there. Yeah, there is a lot down here. You can see it's ranging from here to about here. So that looks like it's in situ, it's not moved anywhere. So where's the grave cut? Well, I think that these two large stones here, which end about here, mark one side of it. And what I've been thinking of as a wall here is actually marking the foot end of it. This gets better and better. The small wall was Glastonbury's chancel, and this means that Bridge's burial could well be related to an earlier chapel. And now Oliver's convinced he's found it. The evidence, we've got these two whacking great post holes in front of us, but the killer piece of evidence is the fact that they align really nicely with the rock cut feature stretching off into the distance there, and the fact that together they're on a different alignment to the walls that we can see. Only by a couple of degrees would I think it's significant. If Oliver's right, it means a wooden chapel was here before the Glastonbury monks arrived. And the exciting news is that if Bridge's burial is related to it, a bone sample could actually date it. It's all getting pretty exciting over there, apparently, so we're going to leave a skeleton crew on the headland, which is fairly appropriate, I suppose, and the rest of us are going over to see what's happening. After we left, it seems our archaeological hermits made the most of their island experience. The big news is that Matt's found a burial carved into the bedrock. Ian thinks he's finally found the west wall of the chapel, and Tracey's cleaned up the possible standing stone. So, ah, you've got a grave cut, haven't you? This is it here, look. You can see, cut into the shale going all the way along there. This is the wider head end going back down here. Do my eyes deceive me, or is that a very big bone? That is a very big shin bone. There's his foot there. Unfortunately, no knee bone and no sign of a thigh yet. Do you think it might belong to the same person we found on the first day? Well, in a way, I hope not, because that would mean the burial's been really disturbed. Disturbed or not, if he's buried inside the building, he could be a significant figure in the chapel's history. That's a really curious-looking wall you've got there. It's quite a complicated story, because here you've got this plaster here, and you can see the line of the wall continuing through here. So I think that this stone is actually added on, which implies to me that this is not just one chapel that was built and then that was it. Periodically, it was refurbished, it was strengthened, it was modified. It's a very, very long story. And part of that story, the addition of the chancel, is exactly the same as we found on the mainland. But this isn't the only similarity. It looks like Matt's burial is in the same position as the reliquary in front of the altar. If only our big-boned man could tell us when he was buried, because we're running out of time to work out just how long this story is. But with a few hours left, we're putting another trench in, because Stuart's spotted a ditch running all around the top of the hill, which might give us an idea of how long a chapel has stood here. We're only just below the surface, and already we've got some finds. It's certainly medieval at the latest, and probably earlier. It is handmade. Let's do a, throw a spanner in the works. Just found a Roman radiant. That may influence my decision about the pot. This could actually be a Romano-British shirt then. It looks like we're heading further back into the time of the Cornish saints, because the latest theory is that our burial and reliquary are from an even earlier chapel than the one Oliver found, which Glastonbury probably revamped by adding a chancel. And if so, pilgrims could have been coming to pay their respects to relics in this box long before Glastonbury's time. Meanwhile, the island has turned into a hive of activity. Kerry's trying to lift the possible standing stone, without much success. And it's all going on in the oval enclosure, where we've been pulling out a coin every eight minutes. So far, there are six. Jonathan, that means one more coin and you've got another haughtier name. You've got one beautiful coin here that you can clearly see the figurine of a goddess on the back. Back on the lawns, the huge stone doesn't want to stand up, so Kerry's now burrowing under it. It's smooth underneath, Tracy. I don't think there's anything under there. I think we can go for the standing stone. Exciting as this is, it's undateable. These are medieval shirts of Polk. One's actually got a little spot of glazing, so that helps me a little bit. I think these are mid to late 13th century. So how does that fit into the history of the island and this chapel, Nicholas? Well, the late 13th century is when Glastonbury is giving up this site and bringing the monks back, but it's possible that this is one of the last monks or priors of the place, and if it's not that, it's the lord or lady of the manor. It's clearly a very important grave that's been excavated out of the rock. It's at a pole position in the church. And Matt's burial isn't alone. Just as we're packing up, outside the west end of the chapel, Ian's found what looks like a kissed burial. But you're going to be staying here anyway, aren't you? So will you let us know at some time what it was? Sure. Cheers. Matt, we've got to go, like, now. OK, let's go. Even as we're loading onto the boat, another kissed burial emerges from under the south wall. Cheers, mate. Cheers, Tony. Thanks for having us. You're welcome. It's beginning to look like this enclosure could have been a burial ground for thousands of years, maybe even into prehistory. Over the last few days, we've discovered that the story of our two chapels began long before Glastonbury's monks arrived, when Loo Island could well have been one of the earliest outposts of Christianity, and a chapel on the top would have been a beacon of hope for traders from the Mediterranean crossing formidable seas. Some time later, another chapel was built on the mainland, at the same height looking to the island, with our reliquary box at the altar for pilgrims to visit. And eventually, in the 12th century, Glastonbury's monks rebuilt both the chapels as a sort of St Michael theme park. Over the last three days, we've just scratched the surface of this magical island, which has been a very special place going way back long before Christianity. Time Team is 100% independent and funded by our incredible fans. Joining Patreon gives you access to exclusive interviews, 3D models, masterclasses and more. Please join us on this exciting journey. We need more support to make more episodes. A few years ago, some geophys was done over some crop marks in that field up there, and it produced some of the most tantalising results that we've seen for years. Not only that, but a metal detectorist has found a tiny bit of Bronze Age gold up there, and lots of pottery has come up, including this 5th century piece. But this is Cornwall, this is Turkish, and this tiny little bit, believe it or not, is African. So what on earth's going on here? Well, evidence has been found suggesting ancient mariners plied these waters thousands of years ago, bringing in from overseas exotic goods such as wine, silk and papyrus, and taking away local tin and copper. So is there the remotest chance that this is the shadow of an early trading site, the like of which we've never seen on Time Team before? So, with the old geophys as our guide, we're going to start our investigation by opening two trenches, one in each of the fields that overlooks the beach. In the lower field nearest the cove, Matt and Raksha are putting a trench in over a large geophys anomaly, which doesn't much look like the traditional roundhouses in the other field. Could it be because the archaeology here, as Mick suspects, was linked to ancient trade? Whereas over in the upper field, Phil's investigating what could be an Iron Age roundhouse, that wouldn't normally be associated with the types of finds previously discovered on this site. Finds that include pieces of Bronze Age axe, Roman coins, and, of course, the intriguing exotic 5th and 6th century pottery from overseas. In fact, we could be looking at a thousand years of activity. But unfortunately, most of this material has been found lying about on the ground, and that means the archaeologists can't use it to date anything here. One thing that fascinates me about this geophys is that they seem to have really thick walls around these houses. What I think you've got is an outer stone face, a core of rubbish midden material, and then another inner stone core, so it's a composite wall. Does cavity rubbish insulation make any sense to you, Francis? Well, sort of sense to me, yeah. I think the main thing is you've got structure. You may have finds actually on the floor in the central halves, but what that geophys tells me is that those houses are very understated. Well, we've dug prehistoric roundhouses before on Time Team, and circles like this do suggest the remains of a mud or stone house, roofed with thatch or turf. It might also be surrounded by a ditch to drain away the rainwater, while inside there's normally a hearth for the family fire. But although archaeologically they're fairly easy to uncover, it's much more difficult to date a prehistoric house. What you need are finds. This is a Roman coin, which is nice to see because several others have been found in the field by the metal detectorists. Why do you say that's Roman? From its shape, it's been hammered by using a hand hammer, and also I can probably go even a bit further and say that it's most likely from the Emperor Hadrian, who was around about the second century AD. So confident, and in front of a television camera. Much experience. Look at that. How many of you could tell that that was a coin of the Emperor Hadrian? So our first piece of dating material puts Matt's trench firmly into the Roman period, possibly centuries after our potential prehistoric settlement in the other field. That is, if we can find it, because at the moment all we've got in Phil's trench are a series of strange stone features. John is simply bemused and confused. Well, I mean, you've definitely got a good edge swinging round there. Back in the lower field, Matt's on a roll. Um, pottery, yeah. Prehistoric. It's Cornish, what we call native courseware. I wouldn't like to say whether it was Iron Age or Roman, because it doesn't change a great deal, but it's that kind of period. And that's just out of the edge here, where this natural's cut away into this silt stuff, isn't it? So stratified among this material, it's good dating evidence. Yeah, I think, here's the second one. That's a rim, there you go. Yeah, it looks like the base of a straight-sided jar. Again, native courseware, and look at the state of the pot. It's obviously been used for cooking. Yeah, really burnt. So that's great. The geophysics showed this huge ring in this field here, and this is the ring here. It's this ditch. Ah, so that is actually that. Yeah, it goes all the way round like that. So now I'm walking into the house, and you can see that the soil's kind of going this dark grey colour, especially round here. That's because there's so much charcoal in here. We found some burnt animal bone up there as well, so there's just rubbish all over the floor, really. Is this the wall on the other side? Ah, now, according to the geophysics, the ditch there, the wall ditch, should go round behind you and should be at the other end of the trench there, so this should be about the centre of the house. So is this the hearth that's producing all the charcoal and burnt material? Yeah, it looks like it. You've got finds in the finds tray. Yep, there's some great stuff out of here. And there's another bit down there? Yep, there's another bit in situ down there, you can see. That's a bit of amphora. So these are these big wine and oil storage jars. This is coming from the East Mediterranean, then? Yep, that's post-Roman as well, that's 5th or 6th century. So if this isn't my outside wall, where is the other outside wall? Well, according to the geophysics, it should be right about the other end of the trench there. Right here somewhere? Yep. Raksha, can you stand up for a sec? And the other wall is where Raksha is. If that's right, it's a heck of a big building, mate. It's a huge building, especially if it's producing material like this, this post-Roman stuff. That's really exciting. Why would it be so significant if it was that sort of date? Because we don't get structures that are sort of post-Roman very often, particularly with the finds associated with them. And this is the so-called Dark Ages, because we don't know very much about it. Usually because we can't tell her of that period, because we haven't got the finds to go with them. So if this is 5th or 6th century, then this could actually be illuminating the Dark Ages, which isn't a bad job for tomorrow, is it? The star find in Matt's trench yesterday was this small piece of Turkish pottery that had somehow travelled hundreds, even thousands of miles from the Mediterranean ports to Cornwall in the 5th or 6th century. And it's this evidence, along with the pieces of African pot that have already been found, that lead archaeologists to believe our cove could once have been visited by ships from all over southern Europe. The problem for me is it seems an odd place to put a harbour. This is the modern map, and our site is just in there. And you can see immediately how sheltered it is round the back of this headland here. You've got the full force of the Atlantic coming up here, but if you come round here, it's perfectly sheltered. This green area is all sand, which you wouldn't really want to bring a boat over. The main channel of the camel is out in the middle now, going off down the estuary, down up towards Padstow. If they can tell how deep the channel was in ancient times, then we should be able to work out how big a boat could have sailed here thousands of years ago. Got some lovely bits of pottery coming up now, Carl. Over in the Iron Age settlement, it looks like Phil's made the breakthrough he's been hoping for. The confusing strips of rock are beginning to reveal a recognisable shape, and there's at last some dateable pottery from the trench. Oh, that's fantastic. This is the first distinctive Iron Age shirt I've seen on the site. I can tell that because it's very upright in nature, whereas the Roman ones are much more folded over. Probably sort of late 3rd, early 2nd century BC. So there's absolutely no doubt this could not be into the Roman period? No, this is definitely Iron Age from the upright nature of the rim. I mean, the thing that strikes me is that that shirt and the others with it are so big, and in such good condition, they can only have come from this building. It's not looking really quite as round as it was. It's more rectangular or something. It's not looking quite as round as it was. That is archaeology speak, isn't it? Perhaps not round at all, but more, I mean, it could be rectangular. It's the right place for a trading post, whereas John G. Afiz has put his money on something like a workshop. Either way, if we're lucky, we should get more information about where our ancient traders were from and when they visited. Oh, look at that. Oh, is that Sabian? Well, I think it is, except that it's so badly decayed. Look, all the really bright red has worn off, but look, it's got this sort of spirally pattern going round there and round there. It's very abraded. Well, it is, that is, but at least it's good Roman. But at this stage, it's impossible to tell if a good Roman was actually here. Over in the other field, we have a whole prehistoric village to deal with, and Francis is now looking for signs of the first settlers, possibly from the Bronze Age. If Francis does uncover a prehistoric trackway, it could push the date of our site back by another thousand years. Now, that's the same 5th and 6th century stuff that we had from this trench before. This is really high-status stuff. I mean, it would have had wine or olive oil in it, but, I mean, you just don't find this sort of thing on most British sites. And, I mean, to find one really fresh shirt, it hasn't been lying around for long, so that's got straight into the ground. And there's another one. There's another one down here. Let's get that bit out as well. Yeah. They're from the same pot. What's the betting I can get them to join? I'll get you a drink if you can sort it out. There they go. I owe you a pint. You owe me a pint, Matt. Yes. Yes, beautiful. I'm glad we've got an experienced archaeologist on this dig. This may be the least convincing pot reconstruction ever, but it's yet more evidence of trade, in this case oil or wine, coming along this coast in the 5th or 6th century. What about the date? Now, that's a tricky one. We know that this driveway is in a terrace that was ground down by animals' hooves over hundreds of years, probably. So I wouldn't be at all surprised if this driveway didn't begin in the Bronze Age, then go on into the Iron Age when it was formalised by the Ditches. So, for all we know, there could be 1,000 years of settlement on this hillside. Thank you, Francis. That's why this cluster of houses was such a peculiar shape. We simply haven't been able to find any material evidence that links roundhouses to the port complex next door. But with such a dense collection of sturdy, large houses, I can't help but think this village must have benefited from the prosperity a successful port brings. It's a theory that would appear to fit in with Stuart's latest piece of work, because he believes our site was managed by a powerful tribe. You see the headland all the way around here, the village is in here, and if you look between these two curves, you see that line? You've got a bank and a ditch running across. When you look in the field, you can actually see it. To the right, going across the field. And across the track into the next field. There's a bank and ditch that cuts off that entire headland. Well, that's a classic promontory for the Iron Age, where you control the headland and cut it off. And I think that's why the village is here. It's kind of supporting that centre. And indeed, the linearity of that settlement and its direction we've puzzled about, when you look at it, it's on this line here. And it points, literally, towards where you ought to cross into this tribal or chieftain centre upon the hill. I think its orientation is because it's geared towards that centre up there. Yeah, but I think it would be a mistake to think that the headland and the political centre up there actually had many people living on it. I think the people were actually living in our settlement over there, because they're on the best agricultural land, whereas up there they'd have been windblasted and exposed. And I think these people were supporting the headland. Throughout the day in Phil's harbour trench, we've been building up a picture of Roman traders. We've found coins, samionware, slag and food waste. But we've been missing a crucial piece of evidence until now. These, Tony, are African red slipwear sherds, which down here in Cornwall generally mean 5th and 6th century deposits. So that's post-Roman? Indeed, yes. And where were they found? Well, this is the important thing. Those sherds were found in there. In other words, they are well stratified. All the other sherds that we've had of that type of pottery have been in the colluvium, the hill wash, so they're totally unstratified. The stratification for them is good. Now, that's digging speak for undisturbed archaeology. And it proves that these Byzantine finds in Phil's trench are contemporary with Matt's finds next door. Although we didn't find any proof to link our two fields, we now believe the whole site probably evolved over many hundreds of years from a Bronze Age farming community into one of the small but bustling late Iron Age trading centres scattered around the Cornish coast, meeting the demands for local commodities as the Roman Empire expanded. After the Romans disappeared in the 5th century, merchants would have continued to call in occasionally with their exotic goods until the Byzantine Empire faded several hundred years later. It's lovely, isn't it? The perfect Cornish seaside picture, with fields rolling down to the sea. It's hard to imagine just how busy it must have been in the ancient past with a thriving settlement trading with ships sailing in from the continent and beyond. And as they came in below that cliff just there, they would have brought with them fancy goods like oil and wine and new ideas too. Perfectly symbolised by this find that's come up in the last hour or so. It's a stylus, possibly the earliest evidence of writing ever found in Cornwall, dating from around 200 AD. Maybe it was used to record all those imports. Time Team is 100% independent and funded by our incredible fans. Want us to make more episodes? Joining Patreon gives you access to exclusive interviews, 3D models, masterclasses and more. And you get to have your say in the process as we develop new sites. Groovy Old Hall lies in Leicestershire, three miles from Leicester. And to my mind, it's an archaeological theme park. There's an 18th century farmhouse, graced with the ruins of a magnificent 15th century brick manor. While in the garden, medieval masonry rubs shoulders with a huge mound or motte, the remnants of a Norman castle. That's a classic motte. Just that big mound of dirt. And then there's a big old bank out here, look. Can't there, look? Oh, yeah. So to launch our attack on this fantastic site, we're starting with what we think was the home of Groovy's first residence, the Normans. Geophys have started to survey the top of the motte to see if they can pick up any evidence of that original castle. But Phil's already ahead of the game as he thinks he's found our first glimpse of it just down the slope. Well, you know what they say, Phil. One stone's a stone, two stones a Norman castle. Or in my neck of the woods, two stones is just a couple of stones. But this does look promising and the perfect place to open our first trench to see if we do have part of the Norman castle and evidence of the Norman family that owned Groovy for centuries. And talking of people at the top of their heat, Phil's found his initial couple of stones are turning into a considerable pile of stones. But are they our first evidence of the Grey family? Phil, have you got anywhere yet? True, right, we have, Tony. We have got the remains of the stone building on the motte. Look, let me show you on the geophysics. Here is the stone building on the top of the motte and our trench is exactly here. And we've got the wall here, look, Tony, look, there is the leading edge of it, the outside face of the wall, and it's coming out into this quarried area. And in that direction, it's filling up most of the side of the trench. Well, that's a promising start. But it gets better than that, Tony. You know there were some excavations done in the 60s on top of the motte there? Yeah. Well, we've actually got photographs of one of those trenches. That trench is right on the top of the motte. Look how wonderful this set of stone steps is, leading down into the motte. So that should be under there somewhere. All that material is right on the top of the motte. This is not this material here, this is not this wall, this is a totally separate excavation that they did in the 60s. That's extraordinary. I thought we were going to be trying to find out how high this tower went. It now seems we're going to be looking at how deep it went as well. This is turning out to be rather a good dig. Right, everyone clear? We've got to get to the bottom of the wall. That way, we should be able to find out if the tower was here first and the motte was built around it, or if the motte came first, then the tower plonked on top. On most time teams, that would be a big enough challenge to keep us going for three days. But we've also got a 15th century manor house and a medieval wall here to get to grips with. And Mick thinks the key to all of that is the bailey, which he believes would have surrounded the motte. I understand what a motte is, it's the hill with the big building on the top. But what's a bailey? Well, the bailey is the enclosure next to it. There's our motte, look. And these ditches and banks here I think are part of the bailey. This building is probably inside it, probably comes up to the road and then back somewhere like that. If this structure here is part of the main hall, then that building over there might well be the replacement for that. So geophys begin to survey the field in front of the motte for any evidence of the buildings Mick would expect to find in a bailey. And crucially, whether this standing wall once formed part of a great hall. And what makes this so exciting for me is that we've got a real chance to put people in any buildings we do find, because we do know that they were all built by one extraordinary family, the Greys. This is Hugh Gromeniel, who comes over to England with William of Normandy as part of the invading army, wins at the Battle of Hastings, and is rewarded by William, who now makes himself William I of England, with an enormous grant of land, which includes Gruby. We know that he fortified here and he created a base here for himself. We actually know that because after the death of William of Normandy, he doesn't support the nominated heir, William Rufus, but supports William's oldest son. And so he has to build up the castle. He fortifies it and he builds up the walls, expecting trouble. Phil, it's a long time since I've seen you excavate a wall that size. This is a seriously big wall, Tony, and it's such a great thrill to get into a really deep hole. But, of course, there is a really serious side about digging this deep hole, and that is to find out how old this wall is and how it was constructed. And the only way we can do that is to carry on digging deeper and get to the bottom of it. Isn't that going to be a bit dangerous? It looks like it could collapse on you. No, I mean, we've had to consider that, but you can see what we've done. We've already made the trench much, much wider, so that effectively slopes off the sides. It means we can go much, much deeper. So can I walk up your terracing? You can now, but once we've cleaned them, you keep up with us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've now two days left to build up a picture of all the homes lived in by the Gray family at Groobie, starting with their earliest residence, the Norman Castle. And, yes, we've got walls in the geophers and in our trench, but they seem to be going down and down, and we just can't date them yet. But we do know that another trench in the 1960s located a staircase. Unfortunately, we can't locate that in the ground, so we're putting in a trench to locate that trench. Sorry, that staircase. I don't think that's anything to write home about. We need a late 20th century biro expert for that. It's a chuck ice, isn't it? Is that 1960? Over in Tracey's trench, we've now been digging for over a day, and I would like to have some idea of what's going on. Have you got any idea at all what sort of building this might be? Well, I think it's probably a chamber block and a two-storey. Why do you say it's two-storey? Well, it is high status, it's substantially built, but if you look at the window over there by the door, it's only a very small window. And what's the implication of the tiny window? Well, if you've got a single-storey building, high status, you'd expect to have a lot more light coming into it. Oh, I see that implies that there must be another floor above where all the lords and ladies came. With the windows in, yeah, the big windows, yeah. So perhaps we can identify at least part of the home which the Greys lived in in the 14th century, a two-storey chamber block with a top floor where the lords and ladies would have slept. And it's likely to be the white chamber mentioned in the dowry document with a cellar below, possibly the wine cellar. So nearly the end of day two, and I think our quest to piece together the story of the Greys' homes is looking quite promising. Oh, look at that! Blimey! It's quite big bits. It's all 15th century and probably the first half. And Phil's finally got to the bottom of his castle wall. Have you done? Too right, Tony, and it's been really, really worth it. It's just been an exceptional trench. I don't really want to leave it. I mean, we've known for some while about how this wall was built. So we've got these horizontally bedded stones that make the face on this side and on that side with this massive rubble infill and then periodically these levelling-up courses just to stabilise the whole thing. But the crucial thing that I wanted to know was what were the foundations like? What was it actually built on? And what's the answer? Absolutely solid bedrock. I like to think that because this solid bedrock was here that the area may have actually been present as an upstanding knoll and that they were sufficiently good engineers or geologists to realise that this was a much more robust geology and that it provided good foundations for a castle. Have you found any evidence that any of this could be Saxon? There's not a shred of evidence that it's Saxon. I think this is one beautiful Norman castle. Yes, have you? Come on. You've been in there for hundreds of years. Phil, I gather you've got something interesting. Absolutely, Mick. I finally got to the bottom. Right. And I think we've finally got the actual threshold here for the doorway. You've got a door jam one side, haven't you? That's right, we've got the jam there and we've got a jam on this side. I can just see the corner of that. We've got this floor, dead level. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's going into the middle of the tower, isn't it? We think we've got the tower with a doorway and in there is a cellar. This is where this is going into. Right. At a later stage, they take away the doorway, because it's nice stone, probably a decent door, and they just plug up the hole with these stones and then they fill the middle in with clay. So, we've almost cracked it. We know when the castle was built in the Norman period, who built it, Hugh Gromanyneel, and why it descends so deep underground, because there was once a cellar at the bottom of it, accessed by our stairs. So, perhaps when the Greys' fortunes rose with William Ferrars in the 14th century, they began to build their stunning medieval home with two-storey accommodation, a magnificent great hall and buttressed ranges forming a quadrangle. A property fit for the remarkable Elizabeth Woodville, Queen of England. And later, her son, the Marquess Thomas Grey, went one better, demolishing this stone palace and building an even more fashionable brick residence, our 15th century tower. Hello, my name's John Gator. Time Team is fan-funded by Patreon. This vital support helps us to make new episodes. Joining Patreon gives you access to exclusive interviews, 3D models and masterclasses, plus lots more.